Never having met a metaphor he could not twist beyond recognition, Art has been illuminating, agitating, amusing and annoying Puget Sound sports readers for a long time.

Along with Steve Rudman, he co-founded Sports Press Northwest because it didnt seem right that the Google monster should aggregate daily journalism into oblivion without at least a flesh wound from somebody.

Thiel and Rudman labored under the Seattle Post-Intelligencer globe until the print edition died an undeserved death in March, 2009. Art continued on at its online successor seattlepi.com while working on SPNWs creation. His radio commentaries can be heard Friday and Saturday mornings and Friday afternoon on KPLU-FM 88.9.

In 2003 he wrote the definitive book about the Seattle Mariners, Out of Left Field, which became a regional bestseller. In 2009, along with Rudman and KJR 950 afternoon host Mike Gastineau, Thiel authored The Great Book of Seattle Sports Lists, a cross between historylink.org and Mad Magazine that has become mandatory reading for any sports fan who has an indoor bathroom.

A graduate of Pacific Lutheran University as well as two dead papers and a live one, the News Tribune of Tacoma, he has become a fan of entrepreneurial online journalism because it allows him to continue a lifelong passion to take the English language to places it rarely visits willingly, and does not involve the cleaning of kennels or stables.

Bobby Wagner will play in his fifth consecutive Pro Bowl and punter Michael Dickson his first as Seahawks representatives at the annual all-star game Jan. 27 in Orlando. Balloting results were released Tuesday by the NFL.

Seven other Seahawks were listed as alternates, who can play if starters are unavailable: RB Chris Carson, DE Frank Clark, SS Bradley McDougald, LG J.R. Sweezy, QB Russell Wilson and linebacker K.J. Wright. Tyler Lockett made it as a return specialist.

As many large things as the Seahawks did right Sunday, including maybe the best one-yard touchdown run in Seattle annals (by RB Chris Carson), they still lost to a broken-down San Francisco outfit they had beaten 10 times in a row by a collective margin of 127 points, including a 27-point win two weeks earlier.

The renaissance of the rushing game has been the story of the Seahawks season. It took a long time and many resources to back-fill the void left by Marshawn Lynch. But here they are, needing only a win Sunday (1:05 p.m., FOX) in Santa Clara against the 49ers (3-10) to clinch a playoff spot with two weeks to spare, a development as freakish as finding a street in downtown Seattle free of orange cones.

With three regular-season games remaining, it's remarkable that the Seahawks have only to beat the 49ers (3-10) Sunday to clinch a playoff berth with time to spare in the regular season. After all the changes in the off-season, the Seahawks figured to be minnows spooked by even the shadows of NFC sharks.

Vexed by skyrocketing costs, the builders of the Seattle Center Arena switched horses Tuesday. The $800 million-plus project by Los Angeles-based Oak View Group has a new general contractor, Minneapolis-based Mortensen, replacing the joint venture Skanska-Hunt, which was described as willing to "step away."

The previous game, the Seahawks scored a season-high 43 points. Monday night, they had three points entering in the fourth quarter. They won both games.

Beautiful or brutal, the Seahawks seem to have a knack. After an 0-4 preseason and an 0-2 start to the regular season, exactly no one expected them to have a feel for winning games sufficient to make the 2018 NFL playoffs.

Rod Jones, a member of the 1984 Orange Bowl team who held the Washington career record for catches by a tight end, and more recently was the Huskies' academic coordinator, died Saturday at 54 by suicide from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

As much delight as the Seahawks drew Sunday from their 43-16 rout of the 49ers and Richard Sherman, something stood out like the first scratch on a new car -- 386 passing yards allowed to third-string QB Nick Mullens.

Every time the project builders step up to a microphone, the price goes up. Wednesday at the ground-breaking ceremony for the new Seattle Center arena, NHL Hockey Partners CEO Tod Leiweke said the latest arena-only estimated cost was $850 million. Over the weekend, he said it was $800 million.

Someone in charge of explaining the Seattle arena construction timeline to NHL officials recently said in order to make the deadline of an opening by October 2020, all construction, legal and political matters would have to go perfectly.

"The NHL said, 'Perfection?'" according to a project insider, summarizing the exchange. "No. Let's do 2021."

One of the more intriguing observations about CF Jarred Kelenic, said to be the prize in the Mariners' inefficient trade with the New York Mets that required sacrificing All-Star closer Edwin Diaz in order to dump Robinson Cano and his contract, is his birth year of 1999.

The Seahawks likely will be missing RG D.J. Fluker for the Monday night home game against Minnesota and maybe longer because of a pulled hamstring, but the offense will have back RB Chris Carson despite a finger injury, and the defense will regain the services of LB Mychal Kendricks.

Earlier in the week, Richard Sherman described the Seahawks as a "middle of the road" team. Which, on the Sherman Scale of Agitation, is mild. By Sunday afternoon, his 49ers were road kill. That was not mild. It was almost pitiful.

Truth be known, as much as the 43-16 triumph (box) over 2-10 San Francisco upgraded the Seahawks' playoff bona fides, the degree of beatdown was, for most players, awkward.

Traditionalists are firing up their RVs -- Big 10 Conference champion Ohio State vs. Pac-12 Conference in Pasadena at 2 p.m. New Year's Day in the Rose Bowl. Let the caravan shortly begin heading south on I-5.

Confirming: The Rose Bowl is obligated to take the winner of Friday night's Pac-12 Championship. The news is important in case you were among the witnesses whose cringes were so severe that vision was impaired, and you walked away seeking medical attention.

Probably the most complicated relationship over the past 25 years in Seattle sports after George Karl and Gary Payton is Pete Carroll and Richard Sherman. Both relationships were notably responsible for great team success, but the tension between coach and the genius talent eventually wore out each side.

The Cougars' home loss to Washington Friday in the Apple Cup cost more than dignity and the North Division title. In the College Football Rankings released Tuesday, the Cougars fell from eighth to 13th, or one spot beyond where the New Year's Six bowls tend to feed.

After the 2008 hijacking of the Sonics, the state of Oklahoma gets little slack from Seattle sports fans. But after the Seahawks' dramatic win in Charlotte Sunday over the Panthers, two obscure football sons of the Sooner State may offer cause for pause in the decade-long acrimony.

RB Chris Carson and WR David Moore made the two most startling plays in the game, which spilled nacho plates, beer and popcorn across the Northwest.

Thank you! Art Thiel and Steve Rudman

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Kirsten Kendrick's Q. & A. with Thiel can be heard every Friday during Morning Edition at 5:35am and 7:35am and again that same day on All Things Considered at 4:45pm. It also airs Saturday at 6:35am and 9:35am.